Rifle City Market station poised to open

Heidi Rice / Post Independent
Dave Seagraves (third from left), project manager for Kroger Co. on the Rifle fuel station and store manager Keith Cloninger (third from right), anxiously await the final touches on the filling station with other employees on the project.

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RIFLE — The good news is that the Rifle City Market store now boasts the largest fuel station the company has in Colorado.

The bad news was that it didn’t open as planned on Wednesday morning.

But the pumps are expected to be up and running by Thursday after a few glitches are worked out, said City Market store Manager Keith Cloninger.

Kroger Co., the parent company of City Market, broke ground on the site on March 3.

“I can’t believe how fast this all came out of the ground,” Cloninger said. “But these people are so detail-oriented and they don’t want to open until everything is just perfect. They’ve done such an amazing job. Now they just want to dot all the I’s.”

The new fuel station has seven pumps and offers three grades of gasoline, along with diesel. The lanes are wide enough to easily accommodate a large rig or horse trailer.

“The coolest part is that the people of this community asked for this and the company listened,” Cloninger said. “That’s the reason we got it.”

As part of the celebration, anyone who spends $50 or more in the Rifle City Market through Friday will receive four times the number of fuel points.

But the big question of what the prices are going to be won’t be revealed until the station officially opens.

“I think people will be happy with the prices,” was all Cloninger would say.

The manned hours of the filling station will be 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., although customers can utilize the pumps with a credit/debit card 24 hours a day.

“The coolest part is that the people of this community asked for this and the company listened. That’s the reason we got it.” Keith Cloninger City Market store manager